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TRANSPORTATION

Ethanol stays in gasoline even if mandate ends

ETHANOL IS CHEAPER THAN GASOLINE, encouraging refiners to use the biofuel.

BLOOMERG FILE PHOTO/PAUL THOMAS

Posted:
Thursday, August 23, 2012 9:08 am

By Mario ParkerBloomberg News

CHICAGO - Ethanol, the best-performing energy commodity this year, is cheaper than gasoline, encouraging refiners to use the biofuel even if President Barack Obama’s administration ends a requirement to do so.

A 48 cent-per-gallon discount to gasoline provides companies including Exxon Mobile Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. an opportunity to profit by blending the corn-based additive into fuel, while easing prices at the pump for consumers. Marketers may use ethanol as they look for the cheapest way to boost engine performance and reduce pollution.

The most severe U.S. drought in 56 years has prompted lawmakers from both parties to ask the Obama administration to suspend the mandate because of the potential impact on food costs. Ethanol will consume 42 percent of this year’s corn crop, according to government estimates, up from 41 percent last year. The biofuel has been blended into more gasoline than ever this year, Energy Department data show.

“It’s just ingrained in the supply and distribution and it’s having a moderating effect on pump prices,” John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund that focuses on energy, said by phone. “As long as they were still allowed to use it, most would. The lower price and just the logistics of taking it out, most would still use it.”

Denatured ethanol for September delivery slipped 0.4 cent to $2.660 a gallon in electronic trading today on the Chicago Board of Trade. It’s climbed 21 percent this year, more than the 16 percent gain for gasoline on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Cheaper than gasoline

Still, the biofuel is 15 percent cheaper than gasoline with which it’s mixed, known as RBOB, or reformulated blendstock for oxygenate blending. Nymex gasoline extended gains today after rising 1.3 percent yesterday to $3.1042, a 16-week high.

A 2007 U.S. law enacted under President George W. Bush, known as the Renewable Fuels Standard, or RFS, requires refiners to mix 13.2 billion gallons of renewable fuels, such as ethanol, with gasoline in 2012 and 15 billion gallons by 2015.

On an annualized basis, production has averaged 13.6 billion gallons so far this year, above the target. Output has fallen 15 percent from a record 963,000 barrels a day, or a 14.8 billion gallon pace, as of Dec. 30.

The U.S. had the hottest July ever, the government said Aug. 8. Just 23 percent of the corn crop was in good or excellent condition on Aug. 19, the worst assessment for this time of year since 1988, the Agriculture Department said Aug. 20. One bushel of corn makes at least 2.75 gallons of ethanol.

Waiver requests

Twelve Republican and 13 Democratic senators asked Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who enforces the program, to suspend or reduce the country’s ethanol targets in an Aug. 7 letter because of the drought.

That followed an Aug. 2 letter in which a bipartisan group of 156 U.S. lawmakers, led by Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, asked the EPA to cut the requirements. Governors of North Carolina, Arkansas, Maryland, Delaware and Georgia have also called on Obama to halt the RFS.

The EPA asked Aug. 20 for public comments on the waiver requests, and said it has 90 days to make a decision.

“This notice is in keeping with EPA’s commitment to an open and transparent process to evaluate requests the agency receives under the Clean Air Act and does not indicate any predisposition to a specific decision,” the agency said in the Aug. 20 statement.

Alisha Johnson, an EPA spokeswoman, said yesterday that the statement stands.

Economical fuel

“From the ethanol blending perspective, it puts ethanol back on the footing that it’s a fuel used only if it’s economical,” said Sander Cohan, a global transportation fuels analyst and principal with Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. “It wouldn’t be a complete crash. If you’re an ethanol producer, you’re a little nervous right now.”

The profit for making ethanol has tumbled as corn prices surged to $8.49 a bushel Aug. 10. The so-called crush spread, or profit from making ethanol from corn, for September contracts was minus 35 cents yesterday from 17 cents in May.

Producers including Valero have idled or slowed at least four plants since June. Ethanol stockpiles have fallen 8.9 percent from then to 18.5 million barrels as of Aug. 17.

Gasoline output that includes ethanol increased to 92 percent so far in 2012 from 88 percent last year, according to Energy Department data.

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